Condelezza Rice seems to think that a civil war in Iraq will spawn more civil wars throughout the region because, goes her theory, Al Qaeda wants that type of unrest to further its goals. On its face this scenario is scary but Rice gives no explanation on how such conclusions were reached (which isn’t an oddity in modern politics and with this administration in particular). Other pundits however have expressed similar concerns but in the real world sound bites do not a policy make and blaming Al-Qaeda for everything and assuming all things run though Al-Qaeda in the Middle East is simply not the case.
As usual
Originally Posted at Voices In The Wilderness
All Welcomed to join
We can all breathes a sigh of relief knowing that the middle East will not explode into a series of civil wars. There really is no support for that wild eyed idea. Shia Minorities in Saudi Arabia will not take up arms simply because Sunnis and Shias in Iraq cannot find common grounds on how to best distribute oil resources. This is not to say that the Middle East will not be a very fluid environment should civil war brake out in Iraq (For the record I don’t see that possibility as being a foregone conclusion). Should we see a civil war in Iraq it should be clear to anyone on the outside that the Sunnis have no chance of victory without outside aide (Interestingly enough a similar reality brought Saddam Hussein into power and ultimately sustained his power). Saudi Arabia is worried that a Shiite dominated Iraq with close ties to Iran could spark unrest among its Shiite minority as well as embolden the Iraq-Iran coalition to force major chances in the Saudi Kingdom. Signs of this possibility were seen following the January election in Iraq
For the first time in 70 years, the Shiites of eastern Saudi Arabia, the only part of the kingdom where they are a majority, are preparing to win a small measure of political power. Inspired by the Shiites’ success in Iraq’s elections, Shiite leaders here say they intend to sweep to victory in municipal voting scheduled for Thursday and begin using the authority of elective office to push for equal rights. The voting also will likely result in at least some Shiite representation on two nearby councils.
The prospect of even incremental Shiite political gain has alarmed Sunni Muslim leaders across the Middle East, who fear that long-suppressed Shiite communities such as this one astride the kingdom’s lifeblood oil industry will push for an ever-greater role in government. Sunni heads of state have warned the Bush administration that the democratic reform it is encouraging in Iraq and Saudi Arabia could result in a unified “crescent” of Shiite political power stretching from here through Lebanon, Iraq and into Iran.
emphasis mine
Needless to say this will be fought tooth and nail by the Sauds primarily through funding, military expertise, training and safe havens for the Sunni resistance in Iraq. The Bathist regime in Syria may conceivably be strong supporters of the Iran friendly Shiites in Iraq (contrary to the American administrations claim that they are currently funding the Iraqi resistance) and the Turks, which may be the exception in terms of military intervention, will no doubt play a major role in quelling the Kurds in the North who will no doubt try to destabilize Turkey. What we have therefore is a major conflict among Muslim sects in Iraq; each sect will have their backing from one or more nation states. Shiites will be supported by Iran and possibly Syria, Sunnis will be supported by Saudi Arabia and the stateless Kurds will have the support of militias in Turkey which will consequently force Turkey to respond with tremendous force as is their practice. The wild card in this situation truly is the, “Coalition of the willing”. Under normal circumstances a nation who has no kin link to the primary participants in the civil war would not be involved but because of the American and western interest in the region they will be forced to finance one side or the other. The Bush administration has said little of its plan to deal with the outbreak of a civil war, and one can easily make the claim based solely on precedence that there is no plan, but it hard to imagine western nations supporting the Iranian backed Shiites who already have the upper hand in terms of numbers and military might. Having said that Bush’s most recent statements draw pause:
…
VARGAS: What is the policy if, in fact, a civil war should break out or the sectarian violence continues? Are you willing to sacrifice American lives to get the Sunnis and the Shiites to stop killing each other?BUSH:
…
The presence of the U.S. troops is there to protect as many Iraqis as we possibly can from thugs and violence, but it’s also to help the Iraqis protect themselves, and we’re making progress in terms of standing up to these Iraqi troops so they can deal with, deal with these incidents of violence.VARGAS: But what is the plan if the sectarian violence continues? I mean, do the U.S. troops take a larger role? Do they step in more actively to stop the violence?
BUSH: No. The troops are chasing down terrorists. They’re protecting themselves and protecting the people, and — but a major function is to train the Iraqis so they can do the work. I mean the ultimate success in Iraq — and I believe we’re going to be successful — is for the Iraqi citizens to continue to demand unity.
Emphasis Mine
I am not sure if this is policy or just another George W. misspeak but training the Iraqi military which (and I don’t have the numbers) are most probably run and controlled by Shiites in a civil is a HUGE mistake and horrifically shortsighted.
Admittedly the above is just one scenario that can be played out. Syria being a Sunnis state could just as easily decide to fund the Sunnis resistance though given the current strategic pacts they have with Iran I see this as unlikely at least on any large scale. The idea, however, remains unchanged. Civil war in Iraq will be nothing less than a fight for the leadership of the Islamic civilization.
Islam is probably the largest civilization in the world without a core state and if they are to be a major player in the world they will eventually need to crown a core state for the civilization and a civil war in Iraq will play a major role in finalizing the hegemony structure of the Islamic world. Although Sunni Muslims vastly outnumber Shiites in the Islamic world I think that will play little if any role of the final decision of whom the core state of the civilization will ultimately be.
Samuel P. Huntington outlined the need for a core state for Islam in his book, “Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, and he ruled out the Saudi Arabia because
Its relatively small population and geographical vulnerability make it dependent on the West for its security.
Just as relevant today was his dismissal of Pakistan as a potential core State
…
Pakistan has size, population, and military prowess, and its leaders have fairly consistently tried to claim a role as a promoter of cooperation among Islamic states and the speaker for Islam to the rest of the world. Pakistan is, however, relatively poor and suffers serious internal ethnic and regional divisions, a record of political instability, and a fixation on the problem of its security vis-à-vis India, which accounts in large part for its interest in developing close relations with other Islamic countries, as well as non-Muslim powers like China and the United States.
p. 178
Huntington explored the possibility that Turkey could become the core state of the Islamic world however this remains a distant dream unless Turkey decides to de-westernize and abandon its not deeply rooted history of secularism. While Islam has become more relevant to Turkey’s political affairs it remains a nation far to secular, at the moment, to be considered for the role of Islam’s core state.
Iran was ruled out because of the fact that they remain a minority in terms of the culture and the religious sect, Persian and Shia respectively. I would suggest that should Iran successfully defend the Shiites in Iraq, possibly in spite of the western funded Sunnis (in addition to the funding that Saudi Arabia will no doubt give them) there is a good chance that they will have not only the obvious military advantage in the heart of the Islamic world but good strategic positioning ironically enough because of American intervention in two nation states that were previously known to be hostile towards Iran (Taliban and Saddam led Iraq).
Iran has not held back the fact that they want to lead a worldwide Islamic revolution and the first step to that end is uniting the Islamic world. Civil war in Iraq may be the solution to that centuries long impasse.
Any thoughts?
Hit me with your best shot
. . . seems to be a creation of the US itself. Finding itself universally hated–a deterioration from the situation in early 2003 when many Iraqis were at least glad to be rid of Saddam–the US has adopted the Israeli solution to Middle-Eastern problems: Try to get them fighting among themselves to take the heat off you.
This last is not a joke: The US has publicly sought Israeli advice on its pacification operations, at the military command level.
The whole point of Negreponte’s tour of duty in Iraq was to lay the groundwork of death squads and black-ops teams that would provoke the violence. Immediately after his tour insurgent activities seemed to shift from US military convoys to civilian street markets. These latter bombings were actually Negreponte’s teams at work.
The last big attack–the demolition of the Golden dome of Samara–was carried out by militia wearing uniforms of the Iraqi puppet government. This makes it likely that it was a US operation–and that is certainly what is thought over there.
Americans think they are very smart, but the price for that desecration is blood, and it will be paid. Long after we have forgotten what we did, we will be dying for that crime. How smart is that?
To your last point, civil war may be tried on a larger scale, as American failures accelerate. Tried, but will it succeed? That is less obvious. I think it has already occurred to the Turks that they will have to intervene in the region. When they do, it won’t be on our side.
I think the word for what is coming is uncorked. By then it will be too late for regrets.
Geopolitically, there has never been a “core” Islamic state since the time of the Prophet and the first 4 Caliphs (even in the time of the first 4 Caliphs there were some major schisms). For a number of reasons there have been at a minimum two, and more often three or four, major geopolitical centers in Islamic Culture. In the Classical Period you had centers of socio-political gravity in Spain-North Africa, Egypt, the Levant and Persia. Later on, one finds another Central Asian/Turkic cultural and political center.
Oftentimes, language and culture have been more important than sect in determining these fault lines. I strongly suggest, before engaging in geopolitical analysis of the region, reading Marshal G.S. Hodgeson’s “The Venture of Islam” Vols. I-III
This is a major problem for Islam in a political sense. One cannot point to another major civilization in the 21st century without a core state. For this among other reasons Islam is under constant scrutiny by outside influences and must turn to other civilization to resolve each individual issue whether it is turning to the west to slow Saddam’s move into Kuwait or turning to sinic or orthodox leaders to quell fears over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This is unacceptable for a major civilization.
A civil war in Iraq will, for Islam, mimic the rush by Islamic nations to finance the Bosnians in the 90’s. Iraq is however different because it is less of an interest to the other major civilizations (notwithstanding Western coalition members) and thus will allow for an Islamic solution and consequently the crowning of a leading Islamic nation.
Even in the Roman period there were very significant civilization centers with independent political expression in Northern and Eastern Europe. In the post Roman era, Europe has been divided into at the very least a Mediterranean power, a North Sea Power and a Central power around one of the major river systems (variously France, Germany or South Eastern Europe).
East Asia seems to follow the core state model to a certain extent with China as a core state, but even in East Asia the is a North South split that routinely manifests itself. Moreover, much of the historical support for this view comes from the inherent bias toward urban cultures- the “barbarians” of Central Asia (Scyths, Huns, Turks and Mongols) had larger, wealthier and equally literate societies as their contemporaries in East, South and West Asia (along with Europe). Because of climactic and other reasons much of their literature is lost, but it should be remembered that the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe, the Yuan dynasty in China, the Il-Khanids of Persia, and the Chagataid (later the Mughal) Dynasty of Northern India all had their start as provinces of the Mongol Empire.
But Coming back to the 21st Century, the contention that there is a Core State in any major Civilization (except maybe “North American”) is pretty tenuous- what we do have lots of evidence for is that certain geological features trend human political organization toward specific geographical arrangements. Something which leads to large powerful states having a tendency to develop in certain areas. Those states then take cultural leadership roles most of the time.
The geopolitics of SE and SW Asia and in Africa was deliberately constructed by the European powers to create a local detente as between themselves. With decolonization those areas were left with borders pretty much designed to cause failed states. A “shaken out” middle east would probably resolve itself into historical patterns- a Persian center that controls Southern Mesopotamia and the Gulf, an Egyptian Center in NE Africa and along the red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and a Levantine Center that extends itself down into the heartland of the Arabian Peninsula. Such arrangements are the historical norm in the area and have been stable despite a variety of sectarian and ethnic fault lines within those regions.
A civil war in Iraq could just as likely lead to an Arab Shi’ite dominance of the Mesopotamian/Persian sphere at the expense of the Authority of the Iranian Mullahs. Likewise a disruption of the Sunni states of the Arabian Peninsula could lead to Egyptian or Syrian hegemony in the Peninsula- something Egypt has already achieved culturally (with the exception of Al-Jazeera).
To get to my point- civil war in Iraq will only lead to establishment of a “core state” by virtue of significant chunks of Iraq becoming appendages of newly empowered neighboring States or, perhaps, becoming the center of an Arab led Shi’ite power in the traditional lands of the Abbassids and Persians. There will still, however, be the issues of the fragmentation of the Gulf and control of the Holy sites to keep things interesting.
(salut!)
Today Islam is less of a civilization than it is a religion. In the good old days of the Caliphate it was, at times, a vibrant civilization, but the nostalgia of the Caliphate period is mostly nurtured by the salafist , with al-Qaeda being their point man.
Iran tried to be the Vanguard State for a new modern Islamic era just after the revolution in 1979, but no other Muslim country wanted to join them in their propagation for a new Islamic era, mostly because Iran was/is a Shiite state. Turkey has sworn their allegiance to secularism in their constitution and the Turkish military is the guardians of that Ataturk legacy, see the coup d’etats in 1960 and 1980 and in addition to that Turkey has got the aspirations of becoming a member of EU in the future, thus none of these two countries are likely candidates to become a core State for an Islamic resurgence.
Whether the Kurds are able to establish a possible semi-autonomous State in the future is very much depending on US support and Turkish goodwill. If the Kurdish State is to materialize in Northern Iraq and no further the Turks might be persuaded by the US, if not then it is not likely that such a Kurdish state will materialize at all.
many civilizations, have been, and still are affected by the last few centuries of western military pre-eminence and subsequent colonization.
Islam has been a religion from its beginning, as has Christianity, and every other religion. All religions have some impact on the civilizations into which they spread, but this impact is not uniform, some civilizations, some cultures, may be influenced by religion more than others, for a variety of reasons which will be unique to each.
Cultures, or polities, are not monolithic in their views of other cultures or polities, nor do all people in any polity have a uniform level of knowledge and familiarity anything, other cultures included. Thus today you can find some Americans, for example, who follow almost religiously locally popular orthodoxies of events in the Near and Middle East, some who do not, and some who have a hard time remembering which is Iran and which is Iraq.
On the subject of “nostalgia for Caliphate,” this is hardly unique to Salafists, and “Al Qaeda” has evolved in the minds of many westerners into a legendary beast, which is appropriate, since that’s pretty much what it is. The kernel of reality in “Al Qaeda” has to do with US operations during the time when the US and Russia, then the Soviet Union, were involved in a proxy war in Afghanistan. The CIA contracted the services of several individuals to help them recruit expendable gunmen. One of those individuals was Osama bin Laden, and one of the recruitment techniques used involved appealing to youth in a region which had been the victim of western colonization for some time, and as a result, reacted positively to the idea of fighting to save Afghanistan from the godless Russians. And that is about it for “Al Qaeda” and reality.
There are people who sincerely would like a return to Caliphate for religious reasons, but as BooMan pointed out the other day, many peoples’ ostensible “nostalgia for Caliphate” has more to do with a desire for the end of western colonization than any great religious piety, though as has been the case throughout history with such matters, this may be expressed in religious terms. Of course BooMan did not put it in those exact terms, I think he said something like anything but the government they’ve got, and he was referring to US client states.
Some westerners today are not even aware that “countries” like Iraq, or the UAE, just to give examples, were essentially created by the US and the UK, carved up and borders drawn for the convenience of western interests.
An interesting note for the political enthusiasts, “Al Qaeda” means “The Base,” đ
Today, like “terrorism,” the term “Al Qaeda” can, and is used in the west to refer to any person or persons who oppose and resist US policies. This is part of the circular argument of the “war on terror.” US policy is essentially that the world, its natural resources, its land and its people, are all belong to US, and any opposition to that is terror, so there is a war on terror.
The successful effort to inculcate the pseudo-religion of Osama the Emanuel Goldsteinoid arch-villain, and the ubiquitous Al Qaeda, evildoers who hate freedom, the Enemy that Lurks, Zarqawi the thrice-killed, limb-regenerating composite character, etc. must have old Goebbels bursting with pleasure wherever God keeps his spirit.
When the US is removed, it is unlikely that a Utopic Caliphate will immediately become present. These are peoples and cultural/ethnic/national groups that have issues that have gone unresolved since Ottoman days, and while these will be worked out, this will be done by the people themselves, and it is not really something that the west can “help” with.
In the case of the Kurds, the US woos and kills them with equal zeal, depending on the expediency of the moment. World Link TV from time to time shows an excellent program called “Good Kurd, Bad Kurd,” which offers a very accessible overview of just one aspect of US activities regarding Kurds, depending on which part of Kurdistan they live in. The program deals with events that occurred before the native overseer Saddam Hussein became dissatisfied with his slice of revenue from “Kuwait,” and got a bit uppity, overestimating his importance and indispensibility to the US, and thus fell from favor.
Today, RentaKurds are employed and deployed doing contract work for the US in operations various and nefarious, and you are correct that they are motivated by the delusion that the US is going to carve them out a state, or at least carve them out Kirkuk. One would think they would have figured things out by now, but sadly, they have not.
Turkey enjoys, or more accurately suffers from, a combination of unique complexities, cultural and political, historical and rhetorical, geographical and demographical, and it will be interesting to see what happens there as events set in motion decades ago continue to unfold.
(…..)must have old Goebbels bursting with pleasure wherever God keeps his spirit.
First of all I don’t think God is the gatekeeper of Goebbels spirit, that task is taken care of by another gatekeeper operating in totally different environment đ
As for al-Qaeda, it is true that Osama bin Laden and the Maktab al-Khadamat(MAK), a relatively small mujahideen (resistance) group, together with many other Afghan mujahideen groups, initially were supported by the CIA, under the leadership of William Casey back in the 1980s, in their fight against the Soviet occupiers. But with the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 it was no further need to support and fund many of the mujahideen groups and the CIA relinquished most of its support structures in Afghanistan and ended their funding to these groups save for a few within the Northern Alliance. Al-Qaeda was formed after the ending of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan and was meant to be an organization supporting Islamic fighters in different parts of the world, a task the US and the CIA hardly would be in agreement with. Osama bin Laden’s undercurrent of anti-westernism was exacerbated by the arrival of Ayman al-Zawahiri and a philosophy of a permanent jihadist struggle against western and foreign influence was developed and thus it is from 1989 and onwards that the emphasize on violence and the use of terrorism as a political means becomes paramount and culminates in the 9/11 attacks, an attack that neither the CIA nor any other US government institution had any part in, despite the ponderings of many conspiracy theorists.
Some westerners today are not even aware that “countries” like Iraq, or the UAE, just to give examples, were essentially created by the US and the UK, carved up and borders drawn for the convenience of western interests.
Most of the States in the Middle-East is a product of western colonialism, be it the States in the Fertile Crecent, the Maghreb States or the States surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq included. The only modern States of today in the Middle-East that have a fairly independent history concerning its creation as a nation state; is Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Turkey and the northern parts of Yemen.
to dissuade any American from his or her beliefs regarding the 911 events any more than I would attempt to persuade a Christian that Jesus was not the product of an immaculate conception.
Those whose faith traditions permit could do worse than spending an afternoon googling old Ibn Al Saud and a tip for those interested in the “modern age” of American activities in Iran: Mossadeq may be spelled differently by different writers. Those who are called to do so by their preliminary readings may find themselves drawn into the tapestry of the history of post-Ottoman Turkey, and eventually find themselves galloping over the cyber-sands to that land today called “Yemen.”
The question of whether God or some other entity decides the fate of the spirits of the dead would involve theological debate, in which I do not engage without the presence of at least two representatives of at least six religions, each two with diametrically opposing views, and an immoderate quantity of excellent burgundy.
Whatever the role of al Qaeada in 9/11, it was not in key decision-making.
Was al Qaeada actually in charge of some operations? Possible, and not disproven.
Decision-making plainly lay elsewhere. The essential point is that 9/11 was an inside job, and the collapse of building #7, an ordinary skyscraper unlike towers #1 and #2, makes this plain.
It was not a bombing. It was expert demolition.
The timeline shows the 9/11 terrorists had access with authority at the level of US Air Force domestic airspace security, and used it to delay response after the hijacking was known. They were also able to access NORAD wargame plans to co-ordinate 9/11 with existing air-hijacking exercises and use them for cover, but no authority at that level is implied, only access to information.
Government complicity after-the-fact included the fabrication of cell phone messages from the bathroom of an aircraft that later went down in Pennsylvania(cell phones did not work in aircraft in 2001, though a technology to make this possible has since been proposed, and “airphones” do work–using a different technology–but are not located in aircraft bathrooms). Whether these lies were to cover mere gross negligence and incompetence or deeper crimes has never been established.
Finally, whatever struck the Pentagon on that day, it was not an airbus-sized civilian commercial aircraft. For one thing, it the lacked wings of a commercial craft, and hence must have been something else, and much smaller. As with the World Trade Center, there has been no crime investigation.
That 9/11 was masterminded by a bunch of guys hiding in caves in Afghanistan is less likely, as Ductape indicates so delicately, than the virgin birth of Jesus.
Much less likely.
Decision-making plainly lay elsewhere. The essential point is that 9/11 was an inside job, and the collapse of building #7, an ordinary skyscraper unlike towers #1 and #2, makes this plain.
It was not a bombing. It was expert demolition.
This is just one of many conspiracy theories and this article explains in detail how the Twin towers collapsed after the two airliners hit the two buildings and how the structures of the buildings was weakened by the impact and the fires resulting in the collapse of both towers. The engineer also expresses their disbelief in alternative theories like the demolition theory. Experts suggest that building 7 collapsed as a result of structural damage from the collapsing Towers in addition to prolonged fires throughout sustained by fuel stores for emergency generators and this article explains the downfall of the WTC 7 building.
The timeline shows the 9/11 terrorists had access with authority at the level of US Air Force domestic airspace security, and used it to delay response after the hijacking was known. They were also able to access NORAD wargame plans to co-ordinate 9/11 with existing air-hijacking exercises and use them for cover, but no authority at that level is implied, only access to information.
Do you have any conclusive evidence to back up those claims?
Government complicity after-the-fact included the fabrication of cell phone messages from the bathroom of an aircraft that later went down in Pennsylvania 3. (cell phones did not work in aircraft in 2001, though a technology to make this possible has since been proposed, and “airphones” do work–using a different technology–but are not located in aircraft bathrooms). Whether these lies were to cover mere gross negligence and incompetence or deeper crimes has never been established.
3. Well according to this article on wired news, dated 16th February 2001, they did and that is why the airlines prohibited the use of them onboard flights.
4. Finally, whatever struck the Pentagon on that day, it was not an airbus-sized civilian commercial aircraft. For one thing, it the lacked wings of a commercial craft, and hence must have been something else, and much smaller.
4. Well, here are some articles and some scientist countering that theory. This first article is a detailed simulation on how the Boeing 757 struck the Pentagon building and how the explosion evolved. The second article is a compilation of articles on technical comparisons between the debris and actual 757 airplane parts. The pictures of the debris parts of the plane scattered around the Pentagon building compared to pictures of parts on a fully operational Boeing 757, clearly shows the resemblance. The third article is reporting numerous eyewitness accounts that clearly states that they saw a commercial airliner crash into the Pentagon building and five out of those eyewitness accounts said they that they saw a passenger plane from American Airlines.
That 9/11 was masterminded by a bunch of guys hiding in caves in Afghanistan is less likely, as Ductape indicates so delicately, than the virgin birth of Jesus.
To conclude, I can only say that I gracefully disagree with your analysis of the 9/11 attacks. People saw the planes crash into the two buildings and al-Qaeda claimed the responsibility for the deed. The 9/11 commission report even documented that a flight attendant by the name of Betty Ong called via an AT&T airphone to report an emergency aboard the flight.
and an air traffic controller reported;
I have provided a lot of circumstantial evidence backing up that story and experts have said it is possible that the Twin towers could have collapsed the way they did after the two planes crashed in to them. What you have produced so far is just mere speculations and thus is just not convincing at all, in my opinion. I can not see any motivation for the government, the CIA or any other institution to have had their hand in this and if someone says to me that the government did it in order to start their “War on Terror” I have to say they are living in a different world than I am.
What the article says is that cell phones can create a signal which may upset aircraft controls.
It does not say you can make a call.
You can’t. Two reasons: A moving plane changes cells too quickly and the call gets dropped. Once the plane is above 2000 feet the call gets dropped because towers are not oriented to receive it.
Two years after 9/11 cell phone companies were considering how to overcome this problem. The proposed solution was re-orienting the towers and creating special, larger cells.
You can’t. Two reasons: A moving plane changes cells too quickly and the call gets dropped. Once the plane is above 2000 feet the call gets dropped because towers are not oriented to receive it.
Two years after 9/11 cell phone companies were considering how to overcome this problem. The proposed solution was re-orienting the towers and creating special, larger cells.
Well in this article both the spokesperson for the two phone companies AT&T and Verizon Wireless seems to counter your absolute denial that cell phones can not function on airlines in flight, saying;
and
These two articles 1. and 2. are about people in flight when actually using their cell phones seemingly without any problems, (nr. 2 is about people flying during the 9/11 attacks). This Third article claims that it was possible to use a cell phone onboard an airliner in flight, at the time of the 9/11 attacks;
and this article By Guy Kewney, Newswireless.net, also claims that it was, and still is, possible to call from a cell phone from within an airplane in flight.
This article is about Jeremy Glick on Flight 93 and other victims of 9/11, claiming they called their loved ones from the airplanes, saying;
And this Wikipedia article lists many of the flight victims that relatives claimed call them during the ordeal, so yes I would say that it was possible to call from the flights during the 9/11 attacks either by satellite phone, an in-flight GTE Airfone or from a cell phone.
Finally, I’d add that it is more than a coincidence that so many relatives claim to have received phone calls from their loved ones at the same time.
Given the fact that the airliners were close to big cities or areas well covered by base stations at the time of the hijacking, it is highly likely that cell phones were operational from these airliners. Still I have to say that the cell phone stories are by no means paramount to the credibility of the official 9/11 story. The eyewitness stories are much more important in that regard, both the live Television coverage and the personal on-the-scene accounts.